Finish, then, thy New Creation

Finish, Then, Thy New Creation

Pure And Spotless Let Us Be

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NRSV)

16 From now on ... we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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Our second reading for next Sunday stirs a couple of thoughts this early morning. First, it is the essence of Paul’s theology. The end is at hand and everyone who would be saved must be reconciled to God, brought to faith in the God of Israel. Unfortunately, we are distanced from God by our sin; but through blood sacrifice of the sinless Christ our sins are set aside so that we can be reconciled to God. Paul came from a sacrificial system in which blood sacrifice for sin is necessary. But in that system, anything imperfect cannot be sacrificed to God, no more than a blemished lamb can be offered in sacrifice; and so, all humans being sinful, no human but Christ the perfect human is worthy to be offered; and Christ's worth is so great that it suffices for the sins of all humans for all time.

From its beginning, the Christian movement understood the breaking of Christ’s body and shedding of his blood as atoning sacrifice for sin, not his sin, but ours. Our Eucharistic Prayer therefore states of Jesus, “In him, you have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before you. In him, you have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.”

Growth in the Church’s understanding of Jesus’ death may be seen in comparing words attributed to him at the Last Supper. The theology of sacrifice already is present in 1 Corinthians 11:25 (c.a. 50 AD) where Paul quotes Jesus saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” A bit later at Mark 14:24 (c.a. 70 AD) he says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” Coming along still some years later, Matthew 26:28 (c.a. 90 AD?) has him say, “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins.”

Our soteriology and eucharistic theology is Pauline, of blood sacrifice, Christ for sin. Some consider this a significant distinction between Paul and the Church, versus Jesus’ own understanding of himself, his mission and purpose: a ministry of teaching his fellow Jews that the way of God and to God is lovingkindness, not the impossible burden of keeping every jot, dot and tittle of the Law of Moses. In this view, Paul and Jesus are not the same, are they.

The second thought that comes to mind is between Paul versus the developing understanding of the Church. In verse 16 above, "even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way," Paul, a monotheistic Jew, seems not likely to be expressing a high christology of the divinity of Jesus. That view, developed as the Church, understanding itself to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, came along toward the end of the first century AD and is not thoroughly expressed until the Gospel according to John (c.a. 90-110 or so?). The Church's understanding, "Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down," is a so-called high christology that would not have been foreign to the thinking of Gentiles who came to Christianity from pagan culture; but was not unlikely an astonishing development that ended Jewish Christianity.

     

Was Jesus’ blood shed for the remission of our sins? Is that a fact or is that the early Church’s interpretation of a Messiah who turned out not at all as expected, crucified and dead on the Cross instead of victorious and triumphant on the throne of David? And what about christology? And what of the work of the Holy Spirit to guide the Church's Reason?

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About that Lenten task. Perusing a file that Jeremy gave me a few years ago, I found Wunderlich, a proportionally spaced sans serif font with that squiggly g that I like, available both in Regular and, gee whiz, in italic.